I read this 14(?) years ago for school and loved it. I recently bought and re-read it and it was still able to give me shivers.
*** WARNING *** Here be spoilers ***
Just a number and three little words were enough to make me shiver on the train this morning - "8. You may lie". The fact that Lowry managed to build up a world enough to make that have such a high hitting line without ever mentioning the idea of lying is testament to how well this book works.
However, there's lots of ambiguity in there from the history, to the ending. No attempt is made to establish the reason they chose sameness. Other than the fact that inter-community visits do happen, no information is given of the inter-community relations and organisation. And, of course, with the focus of the book leaving the community no confirmation of the plan's success is established.
I also have memories of some themes being stronger on my first read. I particularly seem to remember a stronger thread of Jonas' feelings for Fiona. It would have actually beefed up the later half of the book to have strengthened that thread. The later half moves almost too fast and hardly seems to offer much new unfortunately.
Alex
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